I found a steal of a deal on an ash bodied Strat with a birdseye maple neck/fretboard (very similar to my Lite Ash Strat which is may favorite guitar, but this is a Super Strat) - anyway, this is going to be a mod in many ways/experimental/frankenstein Jerryguitar. Anyway, to start, I want to install an Alembic Stratoblaster and use the pups that were in Wolf 2.0, which on Waldo's site are listed as Fender single-coil Strat style pups. Anyone know exactly what type these were? Make/model? This will be step one, then muck around for a bit and depending on how I like it maybe (or maybe not) drop in the DiMarzio Super 2's with the coil-tap switches and so on.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you.

Last edited by cmc64 on Sun Sep 08, 2013 7:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I searched for several months for jerry style single coils. waldo (iirc) said that jerry's pickups were alnico 5- 5.8k- and formvar wire i believe... i forgot. but the pickups I ended up with fit those specifications exactly. I tried the fender custom shop 69's- which were good but a little to edgy and noisy, some fralin's, some lollars (all the 60's or 70's models I could get my hands on). I ended up with the D. Allen CS 69 Voodoo's (i believe they are called VP now). They are perfect... basically his model of pickup he created to be a Fender Custom Shop 69 killer... I dont know how or why, but they are the quietest vintage strat style pups i've ever used. I HIGHLY recommend these pickups- at $150 or so (complete with paper in oil capacitor for an extra $1) they are the best deal on the market. You can just feel how high quality they are when you hold them in your hand. the silicon/rubber tube things he sends to mount the pickups with also prevent them from getting microphonic at the LOUDEST volumes.

Since Jerry only really used the middle pickup you can still be good getting a set with a hotter bridge pickup- he makes a couple sets that have the 5.8k neck and bridge pickup (same as voodoo 69's) but have a hotter bridge pickup... I think the 6.2k bridge pickup on the voodoos is hot enough... not much louder than the others, i dont know i might like a 6.8k or even a 7.6k for some hot tones... but the stock pickup with the voodoos is great for big railroad blues. these are perfect for any jerry tones, but especially for the 70's tones. they're a bit warmer and not quite as edgy as the super 2 split, but still bright and cutting, more glassy, but still punchy. i'm about to post some demo's so you can check it out for yourself

I installed mine with shielding that I did myself and a master tone control along with a rotary switch called the "Chromacaster" made by deaf eddie. this allows EVERY pickup combination possible in a strat including every SERIES, PARALLEL OUT OF PHASE, and in SERIES OUT OF PHASE sounds... including stuff like bridge and neck in series out of phase in parallel with middle. and of course bridge and neck in parallel or series. I find these tones very useful even for jerry stuff. the bridge and middle in series does a great humbucker tone.

I'm getting seriously close to jerry tones- even with my pro reverb amp and rosewood fretboard with tusq nut and floating vintage strat trem. Even without all the brass and hardtail- and the tube power amp with weber california- I am getting damn close to a nice jerry tone

Woohoo! Thank you for that extremely informative post. That was just the type of reply I was hoping for - not just a "these pickups worked" type answer but a really detailed reply that got everything swirling around in my head right into focus. I don't play out - just basically a gearhead who digs noodling on my favorite tunes after a long day's work - just relaxing and having fun. My EMG's are great pickups but they just don't hit the tone I am looking for. With the other Strat I hopefully will be picking up (or not, but it would be nice) I have a new angle on the never ending tone search and a good project to keep me busy. Thanks so much :thumbs up:

Edit: If you are able, I would love to hear some sound samples. Shit, all I want to do is play now - but there is a ton of housework to be done. I'll get some May 1978 shows cooking and get my work done - then it's playtime!

These are what I have in my strat, and they are amazing. I had been hearing about DAllen pups on Strat Talk for quite a while, so I emailed David and explained to him the sound I was going for. He pointed me towards these, I bought them, and will never swap them out. Prolly any of my future strats will be treated to a set first thing home from the store. They do anything from Jerry to Jimi to basically any other strat type thing from that period. Bright and crystal clear without a hint of icepick. All in all an amazing set.

Thanks for the link - I listened to several sound sample on youtube - these pickups sound quite good and next are on the list. I found it interesting that on the website D. Allen mentioned that the tone of the pickups recalls JG's Alligator Strat. Very interesting....

to NSP - very nice rig you have there. I checked out your video clip - very nice playing and you have a great tone going on there. I have always loved PRS guitars. What pickup do you have in the bridge position and which were you using in the video clip?

I have not yet swapped out my Strat pickups and I am still working on the best combo. I don't have a ton of extra cash at the moment so buying many pickups and trying them all out in different combos (which is what I want to do ) is not feasible. The D Allen's are high up in the running and I am going to try out ScottWalkerGuitars' converting a DiMarzio Super 2 into a single coil idea. I am going to try one in the middle position but that leaves the neck and bridge - maybe put a second converted Super 2 in the bridge but that may be too "thin" sounding according to what I have read about that pickup in split-coil mode in tyhat position. Too many options (not necessarily a bad thing )!! I may route out the guitar for humbuckers eventually but I want to go down the single coil road first. As my favorite Garcia tones are in the Fall 1977 -> Spring '80 range (unless I could get it to sound like Wolf in 1974, especially the Winterland run - the dream come true tone) there are a few different pickup configs covered - but Fall '77 is just about my favorite and that was all single-coil, so that is my starting point.

cmc64 wrote:to NSP - very nice rig you have there. I checked out your video clip - very nice playing and you have a great tone going on there. I have always loved PRS guitars. What pickup do you have in the bridge position and which were you using in the video clip?

Thanks. Yeah, should have mentioned, that was all middle position. They're all DAllen. It's his matched s/s/h VooDoo set.

cmc64 wrote:to NSP - very nice rig you have there. I checked out your video clip - very nice playing and you have a great tone going on there. I have always loved PRS guitars. What pickup do you have in the bridge position and which were you using in the video clip?

Thanks. Yeah, should have mentioned, that was all middle position. They're all DAllen. It's his matched s/s/h VooDoo set.

-Tim

Well that is yet another vote for those pickups. They really do sound fantastic. It is kind of hard to tell from the picture - do you have a coil tap switch for that bridge humbucker?